Roy Williams Retires

[We R Final Four]

I thought he certainly seemed different in our game, and in the UW tourney game.

[tower912]

If he knew this was coming, why reach out to Aidoo?

[MU Fan in Connecticut]

Wojo to UNC.

[cheebs09]

Wojo to UNC.

I honestly don’t know if there is any other hire out there that would piss off a fan base as much as this one.

[JWags85]

If he knew this was coming, why reach out to Aidoo?

Cause he bleeds Carolina Blue.  If he could bring in a bunch of studs for the new coach to have, cause they wanted UNC more than just Roy Williams, he would.

[MikeDeanesDarkGlasses]

I thought he certainly seemed different in our game, and in the UW tourney game.

Currently, UNC recruiting class is 41st.  I've never seen one so low before.  That and the struggles the team went through this year, perhaps Roy Williams isn't the best fit anymore, recruiting 1 and dones. 

[MUINGB]

 Losing to the Badgers was too much for Roy.

[Skatastrophy]

It took me about 10 minutes this morning trying to sort out if this was an elaborate April Fool's joke.

[Herman Cain]

Roy self selected out. Said he wasn't the right man for the job anymore. Have to respect that.

He can enjoy golfing at Augusta and pursue some other things in life now. Right move at the Right time.

[Herman Cain]

Good article on Roy Williams

https://richmond.com/sports/college/teel-roy-williams-exits-coaching-with-raw-emotion-corny-humor-painful-self-doubt/article_7756596f-e6f9-5b98-bd54-9f1185069997.html#tracking-source=article-related-bottom

[keefe]

Losing to the Badgers was too much for Roy.

A humiliating event to be sure in the long, proud history of a storied career.

But however low Deputy Dawg felt losing to the likes of a Greg Gard it was the sharp sting of being bested by The Floor Slapper that convinced him the game had passed him by.

Like the Iron Horse on his 36th birthday or Hitler on his wedding day, Ol' Roy knew precisely what losing to The Prince of Power Point meant.   

[MU82]

Here's Ol' Roy waxing poetic about college athletes eventually getting paid:

"I'm old school. I believe if you have a little adversity, you ought to fight through it, and it makes you stronger at the end. I believe when you make a commitment, that commitment should be solid."

... Unless you want to leave Kansas to coach at North Carolina. Then, dadgum the contract y'all signed and the "solid" commitment y'all made to 18-year-old kids and their parents! That's different cuz that's just doggone, dadgum, diddly-oh bizness, by golly!

[Pakuni]

Here's Ol' Roy waxing poetic about college athletes eventually getting paid:

"I'm old school. I believe if you have a little adversity, you ought to fight through it, and it makes you stronger at the end. I believe when you make a commitment, that commitment should be solid."

... Unless you want to leave Kansas to coach at North Carolina. Then, dadgum the contract y'all signed and the "solid" commitment y'all made to 18-year-old kids and their parents! That's different cuz that's just doggone, dadgum, diddly-oh bizness, by golly!

Ol Roy signed a 10-year contract extension in December 2018, and here he is quitting less than three years later because of a little adversity.

[Herman Cain]

Here's Ol' Roy waxing poetic about college athletes eventually getting paid:

"I'm old school. I believe if you have a little adversity, you ought to fight through it, and it makes you stronger at the end. I believe when you make a commitment, that commitment should be solid."

... Unless you want to leave Kansas to coach at North Carolina. Then, dadgum the contract y'all signed and the "solid" commitment y'all made to 18-year-old kids and their parents! That's different cuz that's just doggone, dadgum, diddly-oh bizness, by golly!

Roy tries to portray himself as a nice guy and with old school values. He was always just as competitive and cut throat as the rest of the coaches out there.

Roy was against one and dones, until he realized he couldn't compete without them. So then he regularly recruited over players, who had committed to being there 4 years, where was the commitment then?

I love the fact that Wojo , of all people, delivered a beat down in the final days.

[keefe]

Matt Doherty.

Tanned. Rested. Ready.

[MU82]

Ol' Roy is a proven hypocrite and cheater. But he says "by jeepers" and "dadgum it," and he looks like anybody's grandpa, so he must be a great guy.

[wadesworld]

When has Roy been proven as a cheater?  And Carolina really isn't the one and done factory that people apparently think it is.  Yes, they get them occasionally.  But that's not really their recruiting strategy.

By and large, by all accounts Roy is a genuinely very good guy.

[The Hippie Satan of Hyperbole]

I tend to think Roy is a good guy who doesn't like the direction college basketball is heading, so he decided to leave.  And that's fine.

And I am not labelling him a "cheater" either despite how problematic the UNC academic scandal was.

[CTWarrior]

If/when the one year waiting period goes away, you are going to have the additional task of re-recruiting your own players every year.  It will be much more difficult to develop a bench, because bench guys who don't see a starting path in the next season will leave for more playing time and it will happen in both directions.  Your system teams will have a more difficult time installing systems when guys won't stay multiple years and grow into their positions.  This is not a weakness of character on the part of the players who transfer, however.  You only get four years to play college hoops, and you may as well enjoy yourself as much as you can and go where you can play the most.

The quality of college basketball will suffer as a result. 

If I was a 70 year old coach with more money than I knew what to do with and a secure legacy, I'd probably retire rather than having to relearn to coach in that environment. 

[wadesworld]

Wasn't Roy more of a solution to the academic scandal problem going on at UNC?  Didn't he come in, find out all the basketball players were majoring in African American studies or whatever the fake courses were, and correct that?

[Spotcheck Billy]

Wasn't Roy more of a solution to the academic scandal problem going on at UNC?  Didn't he come in, find out all the basketball players were majoring in African American studies or whatever the fake courses were, and correct that?

Link?

[MU82]

Wasn't Roy more of a solution to the academic scandal problem going on at UNC?  Didn't he come in, find out all the basketball players were majoring in African American studies or whatever the fake courses were, and correct that?

No. It continued going on well after he was there.

Cheater. And hypocrite.

[wadesworld]

Link?

Roy came out of the report looking about as good as he could have.

https://www.si.com/college/2017/10/13/north-carolina-roy-williams-ncaa-sanctions-academic-fraud

"The AFAM department started to veer off in the 1990s, when Williams was at Kansas. He returned to North Carolina, his alma mater, in 2003. By his second year, he decided that too many of the players he inherited where taking the same African-American Studies courses. He asked his assistant coach in charge of academics, Joe Holladay, to make sure they weren’t being steered there.

That was in 2004–05—years before any of this became public. Williams has said he didn’t suspect fraud. He was just worried players were being pushed into the easiest classes. And according to a university-commissioned, independent report issued in 2015, academic advisors from the men’s basketball program “did not routinely steer players into the classes.” Players found them on their own. Basically, teammates told them these were easy classes, so they took them. (The football program’s advisors did steer players, however.)"

[The Hippie Satan of Hyperbole]

Roy came out of the report looking about as good as he could have.

https://www.si.com/college/2017/10/13/north-carolina-roy-williams-ncaa-sanctions-academic-fraud

"The AFAM department started to veer off in the 1990s, when Williams was at Kansas. He returned to North Carolina, his alma mater, in 2003. By his second year, he decided that too many of the players he inherited where taking the same African-American Studies courses. He asked his assistant coach in charge of academics, Joe Holladay, to make sure they weren’t being steered there.

That was in 2004–05—years before any of this became public. Williams has said he didn’t suspect fraud. He was just worried players were being pushed into the easiest classes. And according to a university-commissioned, independent report issued in 2015, academic advisors from the men’s basketball program “did not routinely steer players into the classes.” Players found them on their own. Basically, teammates told them these were easy classes, so they took them. (The football program’s advisors did steer players, however.)"

My recollection was that this was mostly an issue with football players under Butch Davis and that athletes telling other athletes was how basketball players got involved.

[MU82]

Rashad McCants says the basketball program steered athletes to these classes, and said Ol' Roy knew about them. He offered a lot of details.

https://www.espn.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/11036924/former-north-carolina-basketball-star-rashad-mccants-says-took-sham-classes

Many other athletes backed Roy, but I'm not giving him a free pass. He might not have been in on all of it -- indeed, as was pointed out, he was at Kansas when it started -- but it went on for years right under his nose. These coaches are absolute control freaks, and they have spies everywhere. They know what's going on in their program.

And obviously, nobody is even disputing that Ol' Roy is a mega-hypocrite, holding athletes to one standard while holding himself to absolutely no standard at all when it comes to financial compensation and bolting on a program.